


Fester

by The_Otter_Association



Series: What's Left of Haddonfield [5]
Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game), Halloween Movies - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Decisive Strike, Dissociation, Gen, Not Beta Read, Stabbing, Wounds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24885100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Otter_Association/pseuds/The_Otter_Association
Summary: Laurie thinks about how she got the cut on her palm and what it means about her.
Series: What's Left of Haddonfield [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772890
Kudos: 14





	Fester

It’ll take a few days for the gashes on her palms to heal. She knows it as a fact, feels the knowledge of it deep within her bones. The skin hasn’t knitted together and she peers up at it now, the edges jagged and torn, tender inner skin exposed. At least the bleeding has stopped but the pain lingers, bright and hot.

Laurie flexes her hand, feels the pull of her muscles. There’s no permanent damage. Whatever brought them here can attest to that. Her hand drops to her chest and she leaves it there.

She knows there’s something wrong with her, something beyond the torn skin and wounded ego. It’s a hard pill to swallow; the notion just jumbling up inside her mind, refraining from sticking. Becoming real. She clenches her hand until the pain pops and rears its head, until the shadows unravel from her mind.

The pain is nice. It makes her feel alive - less of an echo of herself. Even when she’s chased or stabbed, it cements the idea that she’s doing it for a reason. Every time she lays on her bed, like she was now, she consoles herself with the purpose of it all. This is her own piece of haven. It makes all the sacrifices worth it.

But Haddonfield is an empty town, filled with ghosts and her lonely thoughts. Even Michael doesn’t bother her on the rare occasion that he’s here. The lack of commotion and social stimulation makes her world feel as bleak as she had after her assault. Which was why she liked the pain because it reached beyond the veil of nothingness that had become her life.

Those were romantic thoughts, of course. She felt something - a lot of things, all the time. The pain, the anger and hunger. Laurie feels them all both in and outside the trial- it’s just when the loneliness gets to her that she breaks. While she had never been social, she had her friends and now most of them were dead.

She brings the wounded hand to her face, regretful. What would she have done differently, knowing what she did now?

Laurie thinks about what she did and the hand drops to her side to the duvet beside her. Haddonfield still feels like home, her place of belonging. All of it feels like it was pulled straight from her memory, from that night on Lampkin Lane.

Long has she wondered if Laurie herself was different - or if she’s always been this way, even from before. If this was why she hadn’t connected well with other people. She closes her eyes, breaths, and the idea tumbles in her mind, wanting to get caught on the sharp edges of her mind.

It sticks and - she feels nothing when she stabs them. Laurie remembers the first night she had been with Michael, when he had been behind her sofa and she plowed her needle right into him. Then twice in the Doyle family’s closet. She had been so afraid then, the emotion so savage and wild in her chest. She had defended herself.

She recalls how the sewing needle - hanger - knife plunged into Michael’s skin. How it tore into him and his blood gushed out like a torrent, warm and slick on her hands. She had sobbed later, with her hands pressed to her face while Doctor Loomis soothed her cooly.

It had gone in so easily.

It goes in easily still, too. That’s the idea that she’s so afraid of - and the consequences. The killers pluck her off of gens or corner her in closets, their faces ugly and mean, twisted in the shadows. She stabs them. Sometimes - what was once rare-- she stabs them twice. Her gut always twists something fierce, something abnormal and abhorrent and she _knows_ she’s not supposed to do that.

Any ordinary object will do; one time she had bludgeoned the trapper with a bowling trophy. Sharp objects were easier and her fingers caught on them more often, her eyes find them quicker. As if she was always meant to see and take them. She doesn’t hesitate. Not when they hoist her over their shoulder or they leer into her presence uninvited.

The action is quick, seamless. For a second the weapon catches on their skin and with enough force it slides in and their screams reverberate in her ear and she’s dropped. Laurie feels no compassion or mercy for them here, not as they hunch over and bellow and screech, blood pouring over their fingers as they clutch desperately at their wounds.

Sometimes, she watches them, bold or behind a counter, safe from their grasp. Other times she leaves them to their misery. A lot of them remember her later, what she can do. Some of them never leave her presence when she’s hooked, hate and spite like angry gods in their eyes.

The worst thing about this wasn’t that she could do it. It would almost be a relief, that she could arm herself against this circle of misery. Instead, she is left with a sinking stomach after each ritual is completed, either by death or escape. She thinks about it now but it is only now that the idea shines brightest.

She wishes she felt nothing every time she did it. Instead the avalanche is strong in her, fills her so completely that she has room for nothing else. Rage, fear and desperation often forces her to deliver the blow but that is not what follows. What does is something that she keeps trying to brush under the rug, pretend isn’t there. It was cool indifference.

The worst thing, she thinks, is not the tolerance but the horrible and creeping speculation that this did not start after she was brought here. But rather that it started long before that, perhaps even before Michael. That she had been born this way.


End file.
